Inflation...or Appreciation?

On Labor Day, I paid $5 for on old paperback of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. The price tag on the back from 2nd Look Books (a different bookstore) was $3.30. The price when it was published in 1976? $1.25. I don't feel very ripped off, though. It has a colorful 70s cover, and it's a book that's making me think about some things I'd never considered in that way before.

If you don't know, it's a story about some people who take a bus ride from the gray town of Hell to the outskirts of Heaven, where they meet various people from their past. Here's a conversation between a ghost from a bus and one of the very solid spirits who came to meet him (he was the ghost's old employee, and had murdered a man).

"...and I'm only a poor man. But I got my rights same as you, see?"
"Oh no. It's no so bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I shouldn't be here. You will not get yours either. You'll get something far better. Never fear."
"That's just what I say. I haven't got my rights. I always done my best and I never done anything wrong. And what I don't see is why I should be put below a bloody murderer like you."
"Who know whether you will be? Only be happy and come with me."
"What do you keep on arguing for? I'm only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I'm not asking for some bleeding charity."
"Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought."

A previous owner left some notes, such as "Only God can satisfy you completely," and rather cryptically, "Any significance in the Scotsman?" Someone who I assume to the be the last owner left a Chocolate Pecan Pie Luna bar wrapper between page 88 and 89, expiring on Aug 24, 2002.

Altogether, the book is so full of character that perhaps $5 was a bargain, after all. :)